Clusters

On November 1, 2021, after multiple rounds of selection, Kelvin Health won Novartis' BIOME Summit Innovation Challenge Montreal '21. One of the interesting facts around that is that it was an innovation summit focused on cardiovascular disease (CVD), however, up until September 2 same year we had never tried to apply Kelvin Health's concept to anything even remotely related to that therapeutic area. How come...?

Kelvin Health originally started as a result of a sequence of events in the pre-existing network of Imagga and Junior Achievement Bulgaria (JAB):

• A former student called to check our technical ability to eventually analyze thermal images to detect COVID-19, which got us excited to help in the first week of the lockdown in Bulgaria.
• Shortly after, we applied to join the Digital Health and Innovation Cluster Bulgaria (DHI) by recommendation from prof. Petko Ruskov , Milena Stoycheva , and Dr. Rosen Dimitrov .
• Despite our initial focus on respiratory infections, Dr. Ivaylo Petrov , then market access lead of Novartis Oncology and one of the ideologists of DHI, got excited about the application to breast cancer and helped us escalate the opportunity and acquire R&D budget and international recognition.
• He also invited us to apply for Novartis' BIOME CVD Summit and their innovation challenge, despite not directly related to oncology.
• In the meantime, Milena Stoycheva, then CEO of Junior Achievement Bulgaria and the fire starter and first chairman of DHI, introduced us to prof. Ivo Petrov . As an open-minded medical scientist, with a taste for innovation, he (and his team) first tests, and only then talks. The initial results of comparison with X-ray angiography was so impressive that just about two weeks later, on September 14, we were able to present them and got selected for the first round of Novartis' BIOME Summit Innovation Challenge, whose final round we won in November apparently.

Our membership in DHI played a central role in practically all steps of the above chain reaction and many following events, also with the help of its CEO Mira Ganova, PhD and project & operations manager Veneta Kuyova-Terzieva .

A similar chain of events happened as an extension of the above. This time starting with 罗氏公司 Bulgaria, also part of DHI, represented by Pavel Panayotov and Aleksandra Garbeva :

• Among other initiatives, they suggested to apply for the so called HealthCareLab (HCL) supported by Roche and EIT Health , and organized by Civitta .
• A few months later, after being selected and actively participating, we won the Screening and Early Diagnostics track of HCL '22 and got (and keep being) invited to multiple events in their ecosystem afterwards.
• Very importantly, we also met fellow entrepreneurs like Dr. Brian E Wallace MD PhD MBA , part of Calmsie 's founding team, who won another track at HCL '22.
• Brian later introduced us to Dylan Attard MD, MRCSI, MEnt. and the team behind MedTech World (MTW) where we won Health Tech Innovation of the Year '22 and Best Med Tech Company to Work For '23.
• That's also where we met ecosystem builders like Ken Nelson and bright entrepreneurs like Juliana Elstad .
• And that's how we got to the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions '23 in Philadelphia. There we got to know their Center for Health Technology and Innovation and its Innovators' Network, a form of an innovation cluster as well.
• We just announced our membership in CHTI yesterday :) And new exciting opportunities are upcoming.

Clusters literally serve as 'hives' for serendipities and butterfly effects. They enable efficient and effective networking in a trust circle. They foster vital synergies, required by an organization operating in a scarcity of resources, that practically every startup is, to have the chance to flourish.

In my experience, clusters are the ultimate vehicle to 'hack' our way into a new industry, which might be a good target, especially when we look for cross-field innovation.

They may be explicit such as DHI, CHTI, and the AI Cluster Bulgaria lead by Kristina Eskenazi and team, that we had the pleasure to join as well end of last year.

They may also be implicit communities, such as Power of BG , the MTW team and delegates.

They may very naturally be alumni-based as well, such as HCL fellows, JAB and Technology Entrepreneurship students.

In any case, it's beneficial to be an active part of them, both as 'givers' and 'takers'. Of course, it's also important to beware not to turn them into an echo chamber, keeping our critical thinking always on.

What's your experience with clusters?

The Venture Contemplations is a newsletter where I share my daily reflections on topics moving me as an entrepreneur and lessons learned the hard way, on a dusty but rewarding 15+ year long journey towards making positive impact with Imagga and more recently - Kelvin Health .